Reflections by Morissa Freiberg-Vance, RJE

I deeply believe that strong Jewish education begins with educators who are continously learning. If we want our students to grow, we have to model that growth ourselves. This winter has been filled with meaningful professional development, for me personally, and for our teaching team!

The Tzedek America Impact Fellowship

I am honored to share that I was recently accepted into the Tzedek America Rabbi Emily Feigelson Impact Fellowship. This national fellowship brings together Jewish professionals who are committed to strengthening Jewish identity, leadership, and civic responsibility through social-action based learning. Tzedek America aims to equip Jewish educators with the tools and knowledge to guide middle and high school students through educational social justice experiences.

This opportunity allows me to think deeper about our already-existing teen social action programming, particularly B’Yachad (8th grade) and Mitzvah Corps (11th/12th grade), and how we can expand on these already successful components of our Teen Program.

The fellowship consists of three webinars, culminating with a trip to Los Angeles in June to help staff a Tzedek America program and put our learning into action.

Yamim: Learning with Colleagues Across Columbus

Rabbi Karen and I had the opportunity to participate in Yamim 2026 through M2: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education (IEJE), alongside colleagues from across the Columbus Jewish community. Yamim is a day-long professional development lab that invites Jewish professionals to explore Israel through its clarifying visions and complicated crossroads, and to design meaningful, values-driven learning experiences for their communities.

This program focused on experiential ways of connecting with Zionist thinkers, in relationship to the upcoming Yamim, Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut. It challenged us to think not just about what we teach, but how we create lessons about Israel that students truly feel and remember.

Learning shoulder-to-shoulder with other Columbus educators and synagogue professionals was incredibly meaningful. There is something powerful about stepping out of the day-to-day and being reminded that we are part of a larger network of Jewish professionals working toward the same goal: raising knowledgeable, proud, engaged Jewish young people with a deep love for Israel.

Thank you to JewishColumbus for hosting this amazing training!

Strengthening Our Classrooms: Inclusion & Classroom Management

Closer to home, our teachers recently engaged in professional development with Hanna Fotsch, Director of Community Inclusion at JewishColumbus. Hanna first spent time observing in our classrooms, which allowed the training to be tailored specifically to our students and our teachers.

The workshop focused on practical, research-based classroom management strategies rooted in compassion, structure, and relationship-building.

Teachers reflected honestly on their hardest classroom moments and explored what Hanna called “The Big Three.”

• Action – incorporating movement and micro-breaks to support engagement
• Interaction – structured peer learning and social connection
• Structure – clear routines that set students up for success

What I appreciated most was the emphasis on seeing behavior through a compassionate lens. We discussed validating feelings (without validating harmful behaviors), using restorative and reflective consequences, and remembering that behavior is often a skill deficit, not defiance.

Our teachers left with tangible strategies they could implement immediately in their classrooms, including clear entry tasks, consistent attention signals, restorative conversations, and simple in-the-moment de-escalation tools. Perhaps most importantly, the training reinforced that small, intentional adjustments can reduce stress for teachers while creating calmer, more inclusive classrooms for students.

Professional learning is not an “extra” for us—it is a core value in our program at Beth Tikvah. I feel incredibly grateful to work alongside clergy and teachers who are so committed to growing in their practice. When we invest in our educators, we invest directly in our children.

I look forward to continuing to share how this learning shapes our school!

Morissa R. Freiberg, RJE has served as Director of Education & Lifelong Learning at Congregation Beth Tikvah since 2012.

Reflections by Rabbi Karen Martin

Published in the March 2026 issue of Tikvah Topics

A few days ago, my husband sent me the comic to the right from xkcd, created by Randall Munroe. Since then, I’ve been thinking about the poetry of William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). His poem “This is Just to Say” is referenced in the comic. Williams was an American poet, author, playwright, and physician of British and Puerto Rican descent, with Jewish heritage (among others).

I first encountered Williams in high school, when we read both “This is Just to Say” and “The Red Wheelbarrow” during an American poetry unit. Only later did I discover his book of poetry Spring and All (1923), a deeply human work that pushed past the alienation of its era in search of wonder. I find that sense of wonder most poignantly expressed in this poem:

Spring and All: III [The farmer deep in thought] By William Carlos Williams

The farmer in deep thought

is pacing through the rain

among his blank fields, with

hands in pockets,

in his head

the harvest already planted.

A cold wind ruffles the water

among the browned weeds.

On all sides

the world rolls coldly away:

black orchards

darkened by the March clouds —

leaving room for thought.

Down past the brushwood

bristling by

the rainsluiced wagonroad

looms the artist figure of

the farmer — composing

— antagonist.

We are given this image of the farmer rising before dawn on the cusp of spring, alone with his thoughts in the pouring rain. The land is a blank canvas; the farmer, an artist poised with his brush. The poem reads like a cold, moody, almost oppressive idyll until we reach the final line, the final word: “antagonist.” Looking back, the hints are there: our farmer/artist “bristling” and “looming” over this act of creation.

In William’s poem, creation and cultivation become a threat—an act of destruction that pits the farmer against the land. I find myself asking: What is being destroyed? The fields are blank, or blanketed by brown weeds. The orchards are black. Darkness, wind, and water converge, and I cannot help but hear this echo:

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

The earth was unformed wastes, and darkness was upon the deeps, and the wind of God stretched out over the waters.

Like our unnamed farmer, we are taught that God’s act of primal creation was intentional.

In Proverbs 3:19, we read:

יְֽהֹוָ֗ה בְּחׇכְמָ֥ה יָסַד־אָ֑רֶץ כּוֹנֵ֥ן

שָׁ֝מַ֗יִם בִּתְבוּנָֽה׃

God founded the earth by wisdom

And established the heavens by understanding.

Creation, we are told, was not haphazard but deliberate, just as the farmer plans out his fields and orchards. In Bereshit Rabbah, a book of midrash—rabbinic discourses, stories, and law derived from the words of Torah and Jewish texts—our rabbis build on this idea of intentional creation. They teach that even before the world was created, God created Torah. Proverbs 8:30 tells us that Wisdom (understood by the rabbis as Torah), was with God at creation as an amon. “What’s an amon?” the rabbis ask. They suggest Wisdom was a caretaker, a nurse, and finally, they suggest that Wisdom was with God as an artisan, declaring, “I was the tool of craft for the Holy One, Blessed Be He,” Later, in Bereshit Rabbah 1:4, we read that Israel, who would receive the Torah, was already conceived before the creation of the world.

Despite this idea of careful planning, Bereshit Rabbah also tells us that the angels questioned whether the creation of humanity was wise. In Bereshit Rabbah 8:1, when God consulted the ministering angels of Mercy, Truth, Righteousness, Peace, they broke into factions and argued in favor (Mercy and Righteousness) or against (Truth and Peace) humanity’s creation. While they were busy arguing, God created humanity. There are days, I imagine, when we all have such debates. Yet because of our capacity for Mercy and Righteousness, we’re told, God created us.

Still, the poem’s darkness and the farmer’s antagonistic presence loom. To plant, we must first break and turn the soil creating a soft place for seeds to take root.

In Angela Buchdahl’s memoir, Heart of a Stranger, she reflects on the Hebrew word mashber, meaning crisis, which uses the three-letter root שבר—“to shatter” or “to break.” In Middle Hebrew, the word referred to a ‘birthing stool.’ In Biblical Hebrew, mashber was associated with ‘birth’—the opening or breaking of the womb. From this, Rabbi Buchdahl teaches us that crisis—shattering—can lead us to renewal, if we can summon the strength to push through.

In language that feels both simple and surprising, Williams conveys an astonishing depth, demanding much of his readers. That is not to say that he consciously intended these echoes; as readers, we inevitably bring our own lenses to the work and to the process of meaning-making.

As we stand on the cusp of spring, with March rains nearly upon us, what are we creating? And what must be broken to make way for the season’s renewal?